ROCKFORD — Earl Vee Gill Jr. has spent most of his adult working life in the retail industry, working for such well known chains as Dillard’s, J.C. Penney, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart.

The most the 36-year-old has ever made is $10.50 an hour.

“I stuck with it because I kept hoping I’d get promoted,” said Gill, who is from Texarkana, Ark., and moved to Rockford in 2009. “But in retail, those promotions never come.”

So Gill finally is taking steps toward a more lucrative future. He has applied to enter the Accelerated Training for Illinois Manufacturing program available to unemployed, lower-income workers in Winnebago, Boone, Stephenson and DeKalb counties.

In September, the Northern Illinois Workforce Alliance, in partnership with the city of Rockford, received a $1.2 million grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to launch a training program tailored to the specific needs of area employers.

The grant will pay for classroom/lab-based and work-based training for 133 people to become certified machine operators, industrial machinery service technicians, CNC tool operators, welders, aircraft mechanics and assemblers.

For those accepted it will include work experience assignments, internships and on-the-job training contracts at several of the area’s top manufacturing firms, including Leading Edge Hydraulics and Ingersoll Machine Tools in Rockford and Energy Dynamics in Machesney Park.

Gill is one of the early applicants and the workforce alliance is looking for hundreds more.

The program is an effort to produce more skilled workers for Rockford’s resurgent manufacturing sector. In January 2010, the industry seemed to be on the ropes — to use a boxing analogy — with manufacturing employment in Boone and Winnebago counties having fallen from 34,600 in August 2007 to 25,000.

Total employment at the same time fell from 166,664 to 140,685, according to state estimates. Since, the area has regained about 4,000 of the total jobs lost but our manufacturing companies have increased employment by 7,500.

And if Gill successfully completes the program he is extremely likely to start at a higher wage than he had in his best years in retail. According to state estimates, in 2012 the average starting wage for a welder was $13 an hour in Boone and Winnebago counties. CNC machine tool operators had an average beginning wage of $14.31 an hour. Engine and machine assemblers typically started at $15.11 and industrial machine repairman on average started off at $16.04.

“In retail you are replaceable. I want to get into something where I’m in high demand,” Gill said.

The length of time it will take to complete the program depends upon a person’s skills. If someone has worked in manufacturing and just needs some additional certifications, they could be in and out of the program in weeks. Gill was told his training could last as long as eight months.